Random News Story Commentary (7/13/2010)


Here are some random tech (and non tech) stories that have been interesting overt the past few days. Hey, wouldn’t this make a good daily segment to this blog? Yes it would, and I’m not doing it. 1) I only have 3 readers and 2) it takes up too much time. I could be sleeping or something like that. It was actually really fun to gather, so maybe I’ll do it when I feel like it. We’ll see. The stories:

Steinbrenner Dies at 80 – Jeez. First Bob Sheppard, now him? We better be winning the World Series this year in their honor. George was a generous man, a leader, wonderful businessman and truly cared about winning and his fans. R.I.P Georgie.

Consumer Reports Slams the iPhone 4Good. It’s a piece of shit. If you haven’t heard the news, Consumer Reports did it’s official review on the iPhone 4 and could not recommend it because its antenna issues are a real problem. According to lab tests, holding the phone in the wrong spot (AKA holding it normally) degrades the signal enough to drop a call, which explains why the jokeface Apple fanboy over at The Other Mac Blog hangs up on me 5 times whenever we have a 10 minute phone conversation. Jobs is now on suicide watch. I bet some engineer is really an Apple hater and did it on purpose. This is what happens when you only let one dude test the prototype and he loses it at a bar. Oh, and threads about the Consumer Reports review keep disappearing off of Apple’s user forums. Sweet censorship, Apple. What the hell is this, China?

Moron Wants to Send Android Phone into Space – This joker raised $2,000 from 65 people for supplies that will launch his EVO4G into space. The dude wants to launch it in a balloon, use it to take pictures and track it with GPS. First off, GPS loses signal after a certain elevation. Secondly, someone already did this on a $150 budget. I just don’t get it. The battery won’t last past 8,000 feet on that thing. I can think of 487 other uses of that money, such as alcohol, strippers, top hats or the Portfolioso is currently unemployed fund.

Nick Swisher Lost the Shit out of the Home Run Derby – Congrats to David ‘Roids Ortiz. Doesn’t matter, the derby is by far the most boring sporting event on television, I fell asleep right after the third batter in round 1. It’s almost as bad as soccer. Nick Swisher is still my boy. The real news is that Bobby Valentine predicted that Jose Ortiz would win it. Typical grandpa thing to do – take a dude with a hispanic name and randomly generate a hispanic first name (Juan Ortiz, Luiz Ortiz, Ramon Ortiz, Miguel Ortiz, whatever – same person.) And to think, I wanted that senile man to manage my team after Torre left.

Dear Google, Please Invite me to the Android AppInventor beta – If you haven’t heard of AppInventor in the news recently, it’s all the rage. Google is developing a tool to create Android Apps in your browser without knowing the java programming. It will be a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) tool that will allow anyone to develop an app. This is good and bad. The good is that it’s designed for educators and that supposedly, this tool can be used to access almost anything that Android can do. The bad: the marketplace is already cluttered with junk apps and this will most certainly add more. Just look at WYSIWYG web editors – they work, but they make 1995 looking junk pages. I am counting on Google to do this right though. It won’t make the most pretty or efficient apps, but it’s something to play with. I can finally get working on that Portfolioso quotes app.